Clad in a T-shirt for U.K. punk pioneers The Clash, 16-year-old Kyo Asada probably doesn't fit most people's image of a typical Bob Dylan fan. But judging from the crowd lined up outside Tokyo's Zepp DiverCity on the opening night of his latest Japan tour, Dylan draws a diverse bunch — not just the middle-aged music nerds you might expect, but also plenty of 20-somethings and teenagers.

"It's my first time seeing him," Asada says — hardly surprising, given that he would have been 12 the last time Dylan rolled through town. "I listened to some of his CDs and I liked what I heard."

So why not go see him in the flesh? This has been a good few months for music fans in Japan looking to get better acquainted with the icons of rock history. Dylan is just the latest in an extraordinary run of veteran — dare I say legendary — artists who've descended on the country in the past half-year.